Many surgical procedures involve thermally affecting tissue, including those in which a catheter is placed inside the body for ablating or otherwise treating a desired tissue region. For example, a catheter having a thermally transmissive region for directing thermal energy may be selected for treating cardiac tissue in the treatment of an arrhythmia, whereby a lesion or other non-electrically conductive region is formed. During such a procedure, it is important for an operating physician to ascertain and/or monitor the temperature of the ablative energy being applied to the tissue, as to ensure that the appropriate temperature levels are reached, which correspond to an effective ablation treatment. While existing devices may include a temperature sensor or other thermal monitoring component disposed somewhere on a catheter for providing an assessment of the temperature of the device and/or the tissue being affected, the measured information obtained may be incomplete or misleading, as typically sensors are either inside a portion of the device or only cover a small portion of the exterior actually contacting the tissue.
As such, if a device provides thermal energy across a relatively large tissue site, monitoring the temperature at a single site or measuring an average temperature of a portion of the device does not provide a complete assessment of the thermal environment present between the device and the tissue being affected. The lack of this needed information could result in gaps or inconsistencies across the treated tissue region, and, more seriously, could lead to unintended thermal damage occurring in sensitive tissue regions, such as the heart.
In view of the above-mentioned limitations, it would be desirable to provide for the measurement and/or monitoring of the thermal conditions and/or environment existing across a substantial portion of a thermal device and the corresponding tissue region being treated by the device.